Wonderful highschool friend

My name is Gordana Babović, born Dobrić, now living in Serbia, in Novi Sad. I was born 1962 in the vicinity of Vinkovci. Since 1977 to 1981 I went to high school in Vinkovci Economics together with Nenad Banda, the wonderful friend and fellow. Knowing Nenad and his great knowledge of both economics and music I always assumed he would eventually become known for one or both of those. Few days ago I typed his name on internet quite by accident, thinking about school days and friends from those days, and I found this site about Nenad and unfortunately found out that it is no longer among us. I was very shaken and it brought me back to those beautiful school days, and childhood when you are neither a child nor grown up enough, so I wanted to day hello and to be one of the participants in the site dedicated to Nenad.

I'm sending a photo from those school days from 1979.

I met Nenad when we went to 1st grade in high school, 1977. He was an adopted child, always saying all the most beautiful things about his "parents" and "sister", and they were proud of him. All the attention, love and care they provided to him, he was giving back by being the best student of our school at that time. I had the honor of representing our school at the municipal contest in mathematics together with Nenad. As far as I remember, he had only A's in all subjects, except one - he declared himself as Serbian, and Croatian language professor didn't appreciate this. Along with economic he attended a music school, with which he often traveled, playing his accordion. He was a wonderful boy, fellow, and friend, and always wanted to help. He was merry, laughing and smiling, but behind that lurked some sadness about which probably only he knew. Toward the end of our joint schooling, somewhere 1980, 1981 he changed much, withdrawing into himself, adoppting slightly strange behavior, he changed his look and spoke about himself as the offbeat Cena.

Come the end of our joint training we each went our separate ways, and since then I didn't see him nor heard anything about him until I found this site. I'm glad that I knew him, that we shared the school days, but very unhappy learning that is no longer alive. I want to take this opportunity to greet members of his family and his friends that I've read were with him and helped him.

Sincerely,
 
Gordana Babovic
Novi Sad